Toyota Prius vs Toyota Yaris

What's the difference?

The Prius can rest its weary head. The Age of the Hybrid has begun. Even though this iconic eco car might have lost its ultimate purpose to more mainstream models in the last few years, it’s still the best execution of Toyota’s hybrid tech on the market and if you can look past its divisive-as-ever looks, it’s comfortable and practical, too.

The brand’s Australian division promises the Prius will stick around in one form or another, so we’re keen to see what its next iteration will look like. Plug-in? Fully electric? Time will tell.

The Yaris ZR hybrid is a very impressive little hatch. Small, agile, fuel efficient, nice-to-drive and safe, it's certainly set the bar to beat in the small car segment. The trouble is, all of this costs money, placing this particular version outside the budgets of many would-be small car buyers.

The Prius is the very visage of economic motoring. Derided by big-engine lovers, and adored by the eco-crowd, the fact that the Prius’s wedge-shaped frame is more about function than form tells you everything you need to know about this car.

It blends with Toyota’s latest design language, the face and bodywork containing some subtle nods to other models that would launch after it, like the Corolla, Camry, and C-HR.

What always surprises me about even this top-spec Prius is its dorky ride height. For a car with such a low drag coefficient, it sits so far off the ground! The 17-inch wheels look almost out of alignment with the body in those wheelarches.

Round the back, the Prius’s integrated spoiler and glasshouse bodywork are as divisive as ever, with more extreme pointed light fittings leaning into the effect created by its boxy, rear three-quarter view and mirroring the shape of the LED headlights at the front.

Of course, this car is less about being looked at as it is about its drag coefficient of 0.24 Cd, which is one of the lowest on any production car.

Inside, things again prove divisive, with a minimalist dash, a swoopy gloss highlight piece that frames the central vents and multimedia screen, and an odd, centrally mounted dash cluster, which is a usability faux pas.

In the case of the I-Tech at least there’s a holographic display which can put up useful information to help prevent your eyes from drifting too far from the road. Still, I can’t help but feel like this whole interior ethos is futuristic for the sake of being futuristic, with a little less thought given to how practical it is, compared to the brand’s other models.

The leather-appointed trim across the wheel and soft plastics in the door and dash-topper are appreciated, and there’s attention to detail in the little ‘Prius’ logos on the vents. However, I found the dull multimedia screen to be susceptible to glare during the day, and the big integrated panel in which it sits is made from a tinny gloss plastic, which will easily to get covered in fingerprints and scratches.

It's instantly identifiable as a Yaris, despite getting a significant design overhaul with the last generation. Toyotas don't have a unifying design language, but they do have key elements which tie them together, allowing each model to stand apart, but be recognisable as part of the greater Toyota portfolio, regardless.

This Yaris is much better looking than the generation which came before it, with lots of little detail points which make it an attractive small car to look at.

From the outside this includes curvy panel work which works its way from the button-nose and Toyota logo, all the way down the side of the car and to the boot lid in the rear.

There's big attention to detail in even the plastic fill panels, which carry a patterned texture to stop them from looking boring up-close, and our ZR is finished with a healthy serve of contrast black across its roof, in its alloy wheels, and on the integrated spoiler it wears on its tailgate.

It's a cool little car, a little bit cute, and a little bit sporty. It certainly needs to be at the asking price.

Inside sports Toyota's typical approach to interior design with some interesting touches. The Yaris gets some common themes, like the little cut-outs in the dash, the multimedia screen perched atop, and thankfully physical controls for the climate functions.

The seats follow the bucket-like theme of other ZRs, although, in this case they are finished in a light-patterned premium cloth trim, as opposed to the suede and leather ones in its larger Corolla sibling.

The three-spoke steering wheel is cool, as are the funky dot-matrix style dash elements, but the strange felt-like door trim, which also lacks padding for your elbow, is a bit odd. Still, it's an upgrade on the rough scratchy material used in lesser variants.

In typical Toyota fashion, there are quite a few hard plastic materials mixed in with the inclusion of a soft dash-topper, but the Yaris is a supposedly affordable small car after all.

If nothing else, all of the Prius’s edgy design gives it plentiful interior space. Toyota granted this generation of Prius a low seating position and tall roof, which combine with the distant dash elements to make for a spacious cockpit for the front two occupants.

The seat design in the top-spec I-Tech is also cushy, reminiscent of the seats in high-spec Camrys, and I had absolutely no trouble finding a comfortable driving position. If there’s one thing to be said for the annoying, centrally mounted instruments, it’s that you don’t need to consider the position of the wheel interfering with their visibility.

The Prius’s total glasshouse grants superb visibility out the front and sides, with large wing-mirrors, too. The only downside is that integrated spoiler at the back, which makes for a distracting view out the rear mirror that I’m sure any owner will quickly become accustomed to.

Soft trims across the doors and centre console, even in the back seat, make the Prius cabin a comfortable place to be, too.

Ergonomics have not been forgotten, with the multimedia screen and climate unit having useful and easy-to-reach physical dials and toggles for all the key functions. Even changing gear is a breeze in the Prius, with its odd little rosebud-shaped shifter simply a flick of the wrist from where your arm sits.

I do wish Toyota had made better use of the large area under the climate unit, however. The front part of the centre console is exclusively for the wireless-charging bay alone, and the rest of the space is constructed from a smoothly contoured gloss-finish plastic panel. It has looks to match the Prius aesthetic, but it’s no good for storing anything other than a single phone. It would have been better to make a large bay here with a rubberised finish.

Thanks to the lack of a physical handbrake in the centre or any other buttons or functions, there are two large bottle holders with variable edges.

A huge centre-console box and large door bins round out the Prius’s front-seat storage options.

Room in the rear seat is excellent, my 182cm tall frame had stellar amounts of space for my legs and head, as the roofline continues through to that raised rear spoiler. The comfy seat trim continues, although the padding in the base is notably not as good as it is in the front.

There are some useful pockets on the backs of the front seats and a drop-down armrest with cupholders for rear passengers, too.

Finally, the awkward rear of the Prius makes for a fantastic boot capacity, one advantage this car still holds over its hybrid Toyota stablemates. Capacity for the I-Tech is a mid-size-SUV rivalling 502-litres (VDA), which easily consumed our CarsGuide test luggage set and is even bigger than the base Prius, at the cost of the space-saver spare wheel. The I-Tech only has a repair kit to go with its larger alloys.

The Yaris is small on the outside and small on the inside, too.

This means two things: Firstly this car is a breeze to park and it fits in lots of places, making it ideal to drive around the confines of a city.

On the other hand, there's been a clear design choice here to make the Yaris far from as boxy as it could be, focusing on the curvy looks at the cost of interior volume.

The Kia Rio, for example, does a great job of hitting both tight exterior dimensions with big interior ones, making it perhaps a better choice for those with families, although the Rio is set for the great scrapyard in the sky before long.

The inside of the Yaris adds up to a space which is clearly primarily constructed for the space and comfort of front occupants.

Adjustability is good, with telescopic and height adjust for the steering, relatively large comfortable seats, and a set of two surprisingly decent bottle holders in the doors with two more running down the centre console.

There's no armrest box, as it would impede the function of the centre airbag, so there's nowhere to rest your elbow, and the rare inclusion of a manual handbrake lever precludes the addition of further storage between the seats.

The dial-based climate control panel is welcome, and there's a small bay underneath for the storage of your phone, although, like every other storage nook in the cabin, the base is not rubberised, so objects will simply slide around when you're cornering.

The back seat feels very closed-in, especially in the ZR grade, which makes things worse with its dark headlining and heavy window tint, and while I still like the seat trim and large bottle holders in the doors, it's not hard to feel forgotten.

My knees have just a tiny amount of room from the driver's seat set to my own driving position (I'm 182cm tall), and even the so-so door trim is instead replaced by a plain plastic panel. There is also no centre drop-down armrest, nor is there a power outlet.

A caution for those with kids: The rear door doesn't even open very far, so it strikes me as being difficult to work with for the placement of child seats.

The boot also offers a tiny 270 litres, just big enough for our largest CarsGuide demo case but not the other two in the set, which is actually only 124 litres once you include the thickness of the case itself and the wheels.

The ZR Hybrid version we're reviewing here is the ultimate version of the standard Yaris range - excluding the unhinged, rally-bred GR Yaris which only shares a handful of body panels with this car, anyway.

Costing from a frankly wild $33,100, before on-road costs, it's a far cry from the once sub-$20K car the Yaris used to be. It wasn't even that long ago (2020) you could pick up the previous-generation Yaris SX in automatic guise for just $19,610, before on-roads.

This new Yaris is truly 'new' though, built entirely from the ground up to suit Toyota's TNGA platform philosophy, and it's also the first time you can buy a hybrid one.

The result is one of the most recently engineered small cars you can buy in Australia, a far cry from the ancient MG3 or ageing Mazda2.

Is this worth a lot of extra money? To many buyers in this small car segment the answer is probably not, judging by the fact the MG3 is now outselling the Yaris at an insane ratio of 8:1. But standard equipment is impressive regardless, especially at this ZR grade.

Included are 16-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, a 7.0-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, built-in sat-nav, a 4.2-inch multifunction display and dot-matrix-style dash cluster elements, a head-up display, a leather-accented steering wheel, sports seats with cloth upholstery, single-zone climate control, alongside one of the most comprehensive safety suites in the small car segment.

The unique selling point is the hybrid system, though. It makes the Yaris one of the most fuel efficient cars without a plug in Australia - but perhaps by far the biggest issue facing this car is an equivalent ZR Hybrid Corolla costs just $5020 more.

It wouldn’t be a Prius without Toyota’s signature hybrid synergy drive technology. In this most original case it consists of a 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, which uses the more thermally efficient but less powerful Atkinson combustion cycle, producing 72kW/142Nm, paired to a set of electric motors on the front axle, which can produce up to 53kW/163Nm.

Combined system output is rated by Toyota at 90kW, driving the front wheels only via a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT). This system is the same one now also employed in the C-HR and Corolla hybrid grades.

The Prius’s electric motors source their power from an older design nickel-metal hydride battery (instead of the more modern lithium-ion setup) located under the boot floor.

The Yaris ZR hybrid pairs a 1.5-litre three-cylinder Atkinson-cycle petrol engine with an electric motor set-p on the front axle.

The engine on its own produces 67kW/120Nm, but is assisted by an additional 59kW/141Nm from the motor.

Combined, they are capable of producing a peak 85kW. It's about right for the segment the Yaris plays in, and of course there are advantages of the electrified set-up when it comes to acceleration, smoothness and fuel consumption.

The forces of both drive the front wheels via a silky smooth continuously variable transmission, which makes the switch between the two power sources seamless to the driver.

The Prius’ sandpapered hybrid drive, low drag number, weight reductions, and low-rolling-resistance tyres add up for a stellar official/combined fuel-consumption figure of just 3.4L/100km. While its signature hybrid tech might be available on other Toyota’s, it’s here where the Prius still shines, undercutting the others by almost a whole litre every 100km.

But can it live up to that promise in the real world? Over my week of what I would consider to be reasonable ‘combined’ driving conditions; with plenty of traffic, freeways, and suburban driving, the Prius returned a stellar figure of just 4.0L/100km. This is not just one of the lowest figures I have ever achieved on a test car, it is even lower than the Corolla Hybrid that I tested over a three-month period. I couldn’t get that car below 4.9L/100km, despite by best attempts.

For a true rival comparison, my week-long test of the Ioniq hybrid in 2019 had the Korean managing a fuel number of 4.6L/100km.

You need not worry about kWh energy consumption for the Prius, as its hybrid system’s software manages the state of battery charge on the fly. It will simply run the engine to charge the battery if levels drop too low, although it always feels good to make the most of the motor’s regenerative braking to keep the battery topped up.

It’s clear that the Prius is still the king of hybrid, then. At least for the time being. All Prius models have 43-litre fuel capacities and are able to consume base-grade 91RON unleaded.

Fuel consumption sits at 3.3L/100km for the ADR combined cycle, which is one of the best fuel consumption figures for any car without a plug.

This figure will depend a bit on how you drive it, though, with my consumption for the week hitting a more reasonable 3.8L/100km in largely urban testing, which are ideal conditions for this configuration.

I am curious to know what conditions make the 3.3L/100km achievable (it certainly seems achievable), but the figure I scored is immensely impressive regardless.

You can even fill the Yaris with entry-level 91RON unleaded, and the 36-litre fuel tank makes for over 1000km of range if you can score closer to the official fuel consumption.

The Prius was responsible for popularising Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive, and fittingly, it still feels like the best execution of the technology on the market. That instantly available torque from the electric motor is sleek, quiet, and easy. It feels as though the Prius can make more extended use of purely electric drive than not only its rivals, but all other Toyota and Lexus hybrid products.

Despite its awkward exterior looks, the ride and handling of the Prius are excellent, thanks to its robust TNGA-C underpinnings (in fact, the Prius was the car to debut this platform for Toyota). It tilts into corners nicely, despite a frumpy ride height, and deals with bumps in its stride. This is a comfortable car, and the Lexus influence here is undeniable. The steering characteristics are also smooth and responsive. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Prius is fun to drive, but it is certainly comfortable and compliant.

What the Prius lacks is the lower, firmer, and more aggressive ride and handling characteristics of its Hyundai Ioniq rival, perhaps a telling insight into the trajectory of each brand.

These characteristics add up to an around-town driving experience that really is a breeze. It’s quiet in the cabin and at times genuinely hard to tell whether the car is using its electric motors or the engine. When it comes to bursts of acceleration, the Prius might surprise you. Using both the motor and engine in tandem, I found that the Prius can sprint from the line with an alarming urgency, more so than its Corolla sibling. With the same tech behind the accelerator pedal, it’s hard to imagine why.

Once the electric motor has reached its strictly defined limit, though, the engine breaks in with a vengeance, and this car does have an anaemic follow-through when the electric components fall to the wayside. As in other applications of this drivetrain, the 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle petrol engine can be thrashy and noisy when a lot is asked of it.

Of course, driving in such a sporty manner is hardly the point of the Prius, and where it really excels is in that day-to-day traffic grind, where the hybrid system works largely in the background to maximise the time spent with the engine off. The best part? While you can really fall into the hybrid system’s addictive fuel-saving displays, which really encourage hypermiling, this is a set-and-forget system. You can drive the Prius like any other car, and it will be trim on fuel consumption anyway. It’s not like I was trying awfully hard to attain my weekly figure of 4.0L/100km, so I’m sure it can do better over the long term.

The Yaris shines when you hop behind the wheel. This car is not just great to drive, it is benchmark setting for the whole segment.

Toyota's TNGA chassis philosophy is on full show, with the components here combining for a nice ride, gentle but meaningful steering feel, and smooth, quiet acceleration.

It feels like a car with the ride and feedback characteristics of something much more expensive, which speaks to its new-from-the-ground-up formula.

Older cars in the segment can't hold a torch, while even the better-to-drive examples like the Suzuki Swift and Kia Rio lack the poise or polish of the Yaris, not to mention the hybrid system.

The system itself makes the fuel sipping tech addictive to use, with the drive indicator dial in the dash cluster making it obvious where the engine will turn on.

This helps you tailor your driving style to maximise your time using the electric motor only, boosting fuel efficiency.

Even the execution of this system is at its best here in the Yaris, which is light enough that significant amounts of acceleration time can be spent in pure EV mode.

It's not rapid, however. Yes, there's sufficient go from the combined 85kW to get the Yaris moving off the lights, but this drivetrain isn't engaging, making it tough to match the great handling characteristics on offer here.

The Yaris eats up corners in its stride, but really misses the turbo surge or engaging gear shifts of some of its rivals.

Like all hybrid Toyotas, this particular combination is a little unpleasant to drive more aggressively, as the little three-cylinder Atkinson-cycle unit gruffly revs its heart out, breaking the EV-veneer and eating into the otherwise impressive cabin ambiance.

If you're looking for a safe small car, the Yaris, particularly in ZR spec, is about as good as it gets.

While it also accounts for the high cost-of-entry for this model, you could argue the inclusion of comparatively high-end features like freeway-speed auto emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert, and even eight airbags, including a centre airbag, is worth it.

The Yaris range (excluding the GR version) scored a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2020, a particular achievement, as it is to a much more difficult rating criteria compared to the Swift and Rio which were both rated five stars in 2017.

Toyota’s range-wide warranty currently stands at five years or unlimited kilometres, which is really the accepted industry standard and matches its key Ioniq rival.

Annoyingly, however, the Prius needs to adhere to six-monthly or 10,000km service intervals. Said intervals are capped to $165 per visit for the first six visits under Toyota’s “service advantage” program, after which time you fall back to Toyota genuine servicing with significant price hikes to $221.97, and $425.47 for the next two services covering four years or 80,000km.

A year of roadside assist is included, after which time you will need to subscribe to Toyota’s program, from $89 a year.

While Toyota’s offering is on par with many, it’s hardly the cheapest or most comprehensive we’ve seen.

Like all Toyotas you can expect a five year, unlimited kilometre warranty with the Yaris, which is extendable to seven years if you stick to the official service schedule.

We recommend you do, not just because you keep your warranty, but because it's so affordable, you might as well.

The first five years of servicing for the Yaris hybrid is capped to just $245 a year. It needs to see the workshop once every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

Combine this with the low fuel consumption, and the total cost of ownership here is impressive.